Square President and CEO Yoichi today expressed his views on comments made by Nintendo of Japan President Hiroshi Yamauchi about Final Fantasy XI and Square's first GameCube project. Wada said he didn't understand why Nintendo cited [low sales numbers of] Final Fantasy XI to explain their cautious approach to online gaming at an analyst meeting yesterday. "Even though FF could sell over 2,000,000 copies, since it went online, it didn't sell," Satoshi Iwata, Nintendo's new CEO and Yamauchi's successor, was quoted as saying. "Putting FFXI online was taking the challenge of conquering a new market. We would like Nintendo to at least encourage that," Wada countered. He continued to point out that such comments could lead users, who haven't played Final Fantasy XI yet, to get an entirely wrong impression about the game.

According to today's Dengeki sales charts, Square has only sold about 90,000 copies of Final Fantasy XI, compared to sales between 2.4 and 3.8 million units for each of the previous six installments in the series.

Furthermore, he commented negatively on Yamauchi calling Square's first GC project a Final Fantasy game. Wada said the company has yet to make a decision regarding that game's title.